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Complaints procedure

What if you are unhappy about any aspect of our service?

We aim to make your treatment as pleasant as possible every time you visit us. However, if you feel you have not been treated as you would have liked, or are dissatisfied with any aspect of our practice, we want to know. It is only through hearing from you that we can help and improve our service.

Please mention your concerns in the first instance to your dentist. This practice operates an in-house complaints procedure for both our Private and NHS under 18 patients that adheres to nationally agreed criteria.

Guinea Court Dental Surgery In-House Complaints Procedure

In this practice we take complaints very seriously indeed and try to ensure that all our patients are pleased with their experience of our service. When patients complain, they are dealt with courteously and promptly so that the matter is resolved as quickly as possible.

Our aim is to react to complaints in the way in which we would want our complaint about a service to be handled. We learn from every mistake that we make and we respond to patients' concerns in a caring and sensitive way.

The Responsible Person for dealing with any complaint about the service that we provide is Michelle Rook, the Practice Manager.

A complaint should be responded to by the way of a telephone call and acknowledged in writing or email (normally within three working days). Sometimes the complaint can be resolved at this point. If this is the case then the complaint should be logged for discussion at the next staff meeting.

The complainant should be told how the complaint will be dealt with.

The substance of the complaint must be investigated thoroughly.

If the complaint is against a dentist, hygienist or therapist then that person is asked to respond to the complaint unless the patient does not want this to happen.

The matter may need to be resolved by way of a meeting or telephone call with the complainant. Any meeting should be in private and the outcome of such a meeting/call should be confirmed in writing. The response should not be bland or patronising.

During the conversation the views of both dentist/staff member and complainant need to be heard.

If the complaint is not resolved to the complainant's satisfaction, they should be advised of the bodies to which a formal complaint can be made, such as the PCT, the NHS Commissioning Board or the Dental Complaints Service for private patients Records should be kept of all complaints, investigations and responses.

Under normal circumstances the whole procedure should be completed within two months. If there is a delay, for example where you are consulting a defence body or obtaining other information or external opinions, the patient should be advised of this.

The complaints log will be reviewed at staff meeting.

All complaints should be taken seriously and all comments are valuable to us, as we believe this is a valuable tool in the process to improving our service. If patients are not satisfied with the result of our procedure then a complaint may be referred to: